Dear Val Johnstone,
You have heard it again on the news. The wealthiest amongst us enjoying the privilege of tax dodging. Whether it is the UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s father, football player Messi or European Commissioner Cañete - those with the millions make cunning deals with banks to dodge taxes. [1]
The hundreds of cases exposed by the Panama Papers are just another example of how rich individuals and corporations are hiding their money in tax havens.
After years of pressure from people like us, the European Union is now looking into forcing corporations to be transparent about how much tax they pay. That way everyone can see if they have tried to hide profits and how much they actually owe. Next Tuesday the European Commission will come up with a proposal. Corporations are fighting hard to water it down, to the point where it’s useless in the fight against tax dodging.
Our voice must be louder than that of the lobbyists if we want the Commissioners to hear our message!
If the final directive ends up with the type of reporting corporations want, we would get weak data that couldn’t reveal whether corporations are engaged in aggressive tax planning and profit shifting, and we’d get it from fewer than 15% of all companies. [2, 3] It would mean that corporations and wealthy individuals can simply shift their profits to tax havens outside the EU and continue to dodge tax.
If the Commission and its President, Mr Juncker, side with the European people it will show they are serious about providing solutions by cracking down on corporate tax dodging.
Siding with us means ensuring the proposal next Tuesday has teeth. It means all companies in the EU are obliged to report publicly, no matter where their headquarters are; that they report on their activities in all countries, not just EU countries; and that 85% of companies are not exempted from reporting. [4]
We only have a few days to challenge this.
Thank you for standing up for tax justice,
Rebecca (London), Virginia (Madrid), Olga (Rome), Jörg (Hamburg) and the WeMove.EU Team
This petition is run in partnership with the European Network on Debt and Development (Eurodad)
